{John Kerry, the US secretary of state, will hold talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders to try to keep the peace process from collapsing, urging them to reach a long-elusive deal.
}
Kerry is expected to hold talks on Wednesday with Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli prime minister, and Shimon Peres, Israeli president, in Jerusalem, and with Mahmoud Abbas, Palestinian president, in Bethlehem.
After months of shuttle diplomacy, Kerry persuaded Israel and the Palestinians to reopen peace talks in late July after a nearly five-year break.
The sides have committed to hold nine months of talks in hopes of reaching a peace deal that would end decades of conflict.
But a senior Palestinian official, who asked to remain anonymous, told the AFP news agency that the Palestinians would refuse to continue the talks as long as Jewish settlement on the West Bank proliferates.
“The Israeli side is determined to continue its settlement and we cannot continue negotiations under these unprecedented settlement attacks,” he said after a stormy meeting of Israeli and Palestinian negotiators. “The Palestinian-Israeli negotiations broke down during the session on Tuesday night.”
The parties have largely honoured Kerry’s request to keep the content of the negotiations secret
Aljazeera
Leave a Reply